Breathe

Chapter ten : Memories

"Anything?"

"No."  I answer doctor Banner as he adjusts some wires on my head.

"How about now?"

"Doc, respectfully, what in the world are you doing?"  I yank some wires off my head and turn to him.  He hums a response and scribbles something down in a nearby notebook before looking at the tablet in front of him.  I sigh and get up off the chair to look at some graphs on the holograms around the room.  I shake my head, looking at some of the ideas to try and regain my memories.

"Why are you shaking your head?"  Bruce asks, I turn around to look at him.

"HYDRA would want past information I had, they tried to use these techniques, but they never worked."

"I think Brucey and I are better than those little snakes."  Tony comes into the room.  I sigh and turn back to the diagrams, squinting my eyes to see the words better.

"Hey, Bruce?" I ask, and he walks over after putting a file down, "Why do you make all the words so small?  I can barely read it."

Banner looks at me for a moment, "The words aren't that small, Vera."

"Is this hard to read?" Tony supplies a file with blurry lines.

"Blurry lines aren't words, Stark, I thought you were smarter than that." I shake my head, slightly smiling but Tony frowns.  My lips turn downwards, "What?"

"Did your vision change just recently?" Bruce take a small light and shines it into my eyes.

"Not really, it's off and on sometimes." I shrug, "My eyes have always been wonky, even when I was younger." I look around the room, thinking, "But it's gotten worse since we've started trying to recover my memories."

"Go to an eye doctor today, get your eyes checked properly." Stark waves a piece of paper in front of my face, "It would be just our luck if our newest team member went blind."

"Get that out of my face, Stark." I scoff at him and push the paper away.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" The billionaire holds up two blurred fingers.

"I'm not blind, you bully." I roll my eyes.

"You might be." He sings back, I sigh and start to leave the lab.

"I'm going to the eye doctor, since someone won't stop pestering." I say over my shoulder and opening the door out of the lab, I see Banner nod and Stark start picking up a file before closing the door.

_________________

I sigh and toss the prescription glasses onto my bed.  Normally, one would have to wait for their glasses, but no.  I got to get mine right away because of Stark's fancy shnancy credit card.  I wanted to wait like a normal person.  I sigh, at least I won't have them forever, they're just placeholders for my horrible vision until I can get surgery.  Yea, I'm going blind.  How great.

"Vera?  Are you alright?" Jarvis asks from above, I fall onto my bed, burying my head into a blanket.

"No, J.  Not at all." I reply, my voice muffled from the blanket.

"Would you like me to get Mr. Rogers or Miss Romanoff for you?"

"Thanks, Jarvis, but I'll manage."

"Anytime, miss."  Is all he says before leaving me to my thoughts. 

They wanted to do the surgery as soon as possible, so I scheduled it to be in four days.  I went to an optometrist mandated by SHIELD, I had to, any other doctor would throw me somewhere for having corrupted DNA.  Their concern is that my eyesight will get increasingly worse by the day.  They narrowed it down to a safety measure HYDRA took in case I ever tried to recover all my memories.  I sigh and push myself up to stand. 

I rub my eyes without thinking, trying to get the bluriness to subside before I realize it won't go away.  I look for a the dark blurried outline of glasses before realizing I have black bedsheets.  I groan in exasperation and feel around my bed for the glasses until I find them and put them on quickly.  My vision clears up substantially, but it's not as clear as it was before.  It makes sense though, I am going blind.

I trudge out of my room right as doctor Banner passes my door, "Hello again."

"How'd the appointment go?"  He questions immediately.  After he sees my glasses, his eyes grow concerned.

"I'm having surgery in four days."  I reply blandly, his brows furrows.

"Why?  What's happening to your eyes?"

"HYDRA's safety precaution if I was ever to try and recover my memories is to make me blind."  I think on it for a moment, "But really, that's not smart seeing as I can use echolocation."

"I don't think they anticipated how powerful your powers would be."

"They have gotten stronger." I admit, "But I'm still going blind."

"I can run some tests, and walk you through the procedure if you'd like."

"That would be reassuring."  I smile lightly, "Thanks."

"Hey, you're part of the team now, that's what a team does: take care of each other."